CHIRP

I am working on this now and have a prototype driver functional.

Eric, would you still be interested in sharing your driver?

As of 2022, no developers have one of these nor have had enough desire to seek one out. If you don't like that, I suggest you talk to your vendors. Vote with your wallet!

That said, I'm starting to experiment with a preliminary driver (despite not having one of these locally). If a few people could attach their full and meaty ICF files here, I'd appreciate it. Please also report which version of the 5100 (and firmware if available) you're using. My understanding is that the radio has evolved over time, so we will probably need some samples to be able to support them.

Since I don't have one locally, I'm thinking about adding support to CHIRP for writing ICF files, which would at least let 5100 owners program via SD card.

I'm attaching a module for some initial testing. If any brave souls are willing, I'd appreciate a quick read on whether or not this is a total dumpster fire situation.

To load this you need to turn on developer mode in chirp in the Help menu. Then restart chirp and you can File->Load Module this file for that session.

This driver should ideally be able to read ICF files generated from the radio or the CS-5100 software. As of tomorrow, CHIRP should be able to also File->Save As ICF files from this driver, which hopefully the radio will read directly off the SD card. Looking for confirmation of this from someone.

This may support downloading from the radio, I doubt it will work to upload to the radio (but it may). If you try uploading to the radio, be sure you have a backup of the radio first as the radio will reset itself if it decides it doesn't like what it sees.

Please report on your success or failures, which exact model you have and ideally the firmware involved. Please attach ICF and .img files of whatever you try. And of course, debug logs per the usual bug reporting guidelines.

This is an updated id5100.py module to test with today's build of chirp. With the 20221119 build and this module, chirp should be able to open/edit/save ICF files generated by the radio on the SD card and keep the versions the same so that the radio will honor them (hopefully).

I've still received no feedback on this test build, so I'd really appreciate if someone can test it.

Tested on the 20221119 version. I can download from the radio and the img file had the correct repeater names, frequencies, and PL tones. I can not (or don't know how) to get the radio settings such as microphone sensitivity, etc. The .img file is attached. I'm a CHIRP newbie and would be happy to upload the dbg files (and any others) if I knew where to find them :-(.

Uploading to the radio failed twice in a row at the the (approx.) 90% done mark. Relevant files attached.

Okay, this is my best quick guess, let me know if it helps. Also, if you could update to today's build, there is some extra logging in there that will help. Also, if you could capture a debug log of the actual read from radio as well as the write, that would help. Your debugAfterReadFromRadio.log looks like you restarted chirp between the read and the debug log, which means the read wasn't captured.

Also, do you have the ability to try via SD card? I'm also interested if chirp will open/edit/save an ICF file from the radio's SD card and have the radio agree to load the ICF file.

Thanks!

More investigation, here's an updated module more likely to work.

Just unboxed and plugged in my (used) ICOM ID-5100A (with an orange "Deluxe" sticker on the box). Loaded the driver. Started read-from-radio. It auto-detected the 5100 radio, gave me the unsupported radioactive warning, but seemed to load through completion. Saved the config. This was the setup of the guy I got it from, as it came. So I don't know what's "supposed" to be there. Looks like D-STAR wasn't set up. But it looks reasonable. Tried a couple of the channels that I recognized and they seemed fine.

.img and debug.log attached.

I haven't yet tried write-to-radio from CHIRP.

I then fired up the CS-5100 software, latest version downloaded from Icom. Did a download. Looked at the channels etc. and they seemed consistent with what CHIRP found. Did save-as, resulting .icf attached.

Let me know if any specific tests I should try.

Thanks again.

Confirmed, this was the version of the module you uploaded ~2h ago, post #25.

I just tried an upload and it got about 3/4 through and then the radio did "ERROR" flashing, and Chirp "An error has occurred. Failure to communicate ... Did not get clone result".

Attached are the .img that I saved in CHIRP before uploading and the debug.log from the failed upload.

Yeah, that's what Icom radios do when a clone in fails - they reset. It's one of the the things that make them bulletproof. Yaesu radios tend to just sh*t the bed and leave their memory in an unknown state.

Your debug log looks like it's not running the latest module and/or the code I'm intending to have run isn't getting hit like it should. So, hopefully that's the reason. Just to clarify, when chirp was about 75% done, the radio stopped and reported error, then chirp kept on plowing through and then failed at the end with "did not get clone result" right? That's consistent with what I think is happening, which is that the module isn't adjusting its memory size for your model, which appears to be up-to-date. It's sending the v1 format by default (but should have updated itself when you downloaded).

I'm attaching another one with a little more verbosity to help figure out why that didn't happen.

I tried with the special build I got for the ID-51, and the verbose module from post #30 above, and I watched the progress bars more carefully. Download from radio was fine. On the upload, the radio bar got to at or very near the end, then popped up its ERROR. At that time, the CHIRP progress bar was about 60%. CHIRP continued progressing its bar, but when it got to the end gave its "An error has" message.

debug.log attached.

I do not see the File->Load Module option on the daily 20221121 version

On the daily-20221121 version, the read from radio succeeded but the write failed. used the id5100.py from #30

On the daily-20221121 version, the read from radio succeeded but the write failed. used the id5100.py from #30

This time I closed CHIRP before snagging the log after the write failed. I spent 40+ years developing operating systems (mostly Unix/Linux) but I'm a CHIRP noob.

Applied in changeset commit:bb80488772e6.

Okay, so tomorrow's build will have the 5100 driver in it.

The radio behaves quite differently depending on its firmware version. What will be in tomorrow's build seems to work for the latest version (OEM software v1.20 or so). Tony your radio appears to be the latest as well, but please do report back to confirm.

If anyone else has a not-up-to-date 5100, it would be great if you could use tomorrow's build, do a download, and post a debug log.

You all owe Marc Rieffel a debt of gratitude for excellent remote testing help, so tell him thanks :)

Good news. I can read and write to the 5100 using a programming cable. The radio looks good afterward. I still can't (or don't know how) to see the radio settings. The properties tab does nothing, FWIW.

I'm having trouble cloning from the SD card. I copied the .img created by the daily-20221122 to the 5100\setting directory on the SD card. When inserted into the radio, it only shows the, previously created, 'set20221120_01' image. I don't know much of this is caused by any user error.

The radio now sees the file after renaming to a smaller .icf. However, I get an error when I try to load it. The radio works normally after a reboot.

I understand the difficulties of supporting the settings of all radios. But, to me, this limits the usefulness of CHIRP.

yeah, I shoulda known better. However, the result is the same. "Data error. Reboot the ID-5100."

Immediate data error when loading from disk

Not sure if this is useful but directories were created on the SD card but all are empty. Also tried the various load options but the results were the same

No visible change, sorry.

Dan, glad to help out. It's for the "greater good". All below worked fine.

1. I loaded the 20221128 CHIRP image onto the 5100 from a previously saved file.
2. Loaded that image to the radio via the cable.
3. Wrote the radio image to the SD as set20221129_01
4. Successfully loaded that image from the SD to the radio.
5. Transferred the SD to the computer, loaded set20221129_01 via chirp and added a repeater
6. Wrote the image to the SD as set20221129_02
7. Transferred the card back the the radio and successfully loaded the _02 image.

FANTASTIC news! Thanks so much!

This is more than you need to know, but the ICF format for recent radios has another field at the top that appears to be a bitmask of features or something that I haven't figured out. It doesn't get sent to the radio during a clone, and strangely the software seems to reset it when it opens an ICF file with some values, but also changes a bunch of random stuff in memory when it does. I'm unsure of the meaning of this, so I can't really predict what it needs to be. However, CHIRP can do what the radio does, which is keep that value the same and not mangle the other memory locations, as if you had two radios and shared an SD between them. Maybe some day I'll figure it out, but I assume that people that want to avoid using a cable are happy to get an ICF from the radio first, edit that, and then import again.

I'm going to go ahead and mark this as done now. Any additional feature requests for the 5100 can go into a new ticket.

Thanks much to Tony and Mark for all the debugging help!